Cambrex Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Cambrex Corporation managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is a useful technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Cambrex Corporation is facing in its current business environment.

The Cambrex Corporation is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Cambrex Corporation maintains its prominent position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis.  SWOT analysis a highly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.


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The SWOT Analysis framework enables an organization to identify the internal strategic factors such as -strengths and weaknesses, & external strategic factors such as - opportunities and threats. It leads to a 2X2 matrix – also known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Cambrex Corporation to develop four types of strategies:

• SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
• WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
• ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
•  WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The primary purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Cambrex Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Cambrex Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Cambrex Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Cambrex Corporation has numerous strengths that help it to thrive in the market place. These strengths not only help it to protect the market share in existing markets but also help in penetrating new markets. Based on Fern Fort University extensive research – some of the strengths of Cambrex Corporation are –

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• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Cambrex Corporation has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Cambrex Corporation just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Successful track record of integrating complimentary firms through mergers & acquisition. It has successfully integrated number of technology companies in the past few years to streamline its operations and to build a reliable supply chain.
• Strong dealer community – It has built a culture among distributor & dealers where the dealers not only promote company’s products but also invest in training the sales team to explain to the customer how he/she can extract the maximum benefits out of the products.
• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Cambrex Corporation products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Cambrex Corporation is investing huge resources in training and development of its employees resulting in a workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more.
• High level of customer satisfaction – the company with its dedicated customer relationship management department has able to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction among present customers and good brand equity among the potential customers.

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Weakness of Cambrex Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Cambrex Corporation can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where an organization can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Cambrex Corporation has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Cambrex Corporation is spending above the industry average on Research and Development, it has not been able to compete with the leading players in the industry in terms of innovation. It has come across as a mature firm looking forward to bring out products based on tested features in the market.
• Not very good at product demand forecasting leading to higher rate of missed opportunities compare to its competitors. One of the reason why the days inventory is high compare to its competitors is that Cambrex Corporation is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Cambrex Corporation is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• Financial planning is not done properly and efficiently. The current asset ratio and liquid asset ratios suggest that the company can use the cash more efficiently than what it is doing at present.
• The company has not being able to tackle the challenges present by the new entrants in the segment and has lost small market share in the niche categories. Cambrex Corporation has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.

Opportunities for Cambrex Corporation – External Strategic Factors

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• The new technology provides an opportunity to Cambrex Corporation to practices differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It will enable the firm to maintain its loyal customers with great service and lure new customers through other value oriented propositions.
• Organization’s core competencies can be a success in similar other products field. A comparative example could be - GE healthcare research helped it in developing better Oil drilling machines.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Cambrex Corporation . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Cambrex Corporation to increase its profitability.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Cambrex Corporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Cambrex Corporation products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Cambrex Corporation’s products thus providing an opportunity to the company - either to boost its profitability or pass on the benefits to the customers to gain market share.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Cambrex Corporation.

Threats Cambrex Corporation Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Liability laws in different countries are different and Cambrex Corporation may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Cambrex Corporation’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Cambrex Corporation
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• No regular supply of innovative products – Over the years the company has developed numerous products but those are often response to the development by other players. Secondly the supply of new products is not regular thus leading to high and low swings in the sales number over period of time.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Cambrex Corporation   in those markets.
• New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Cambrex Corporation

Although the SWOT analysis is widely used as a strategic planning tool, the analysis does have its share of limitations.

• Certain capabilities or factors of an organization can be both a strength and weakness at the same time. This is one of the major limitations of SWOT analysis . For example changing environmental regulations can be both a threat to company it can also be an opportunity in a sense that it will enable the company to be on a level playing field or at advantage to competitors if it able to develop the products faster than the competitors.
• SWOT does not show how to achieve a competitive advantage, so it must not be an end in itself.
• The matrix is only a starting point for a discussion on how proposed strategies could be implemented. It provided an evaluation window but not an implementation plan based on strategic competitiveness of Cambrex Corporation
• SWOT is a static assessment - analysis of status quo with few prospective changes. As circumstances, capabilities, threats, and strategies change, the dynamics of a competitive environment may not be revealed in a single matrix.
• SWOT analysis may lead the firm to overemphasize a single internal or external factor in formulating strategies. There are interrelationships among the key internal and external factors that SWOT does not reveal that may be important in devising strategies.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cambrex Corporation

In light of the above mentioned limitations of the SWOT analysis / matrix, corporate managers decided to provide weightage to each internal strength and weakness of the firm. Organizations also assess the likelihood of events taking place in the coming future and how strong their impact could be on company's performance.

This method is called Weighted SWOT analysis. It is better than doing simplistic SWOT analysis because with Weighted SWOT Analysis Cambrex Corporation managers can focus on the most critical factors and discount the non-important one. It also solves the long list problem where organizations ends up making a long list but none of the factors deemed too critical.

Limitation of Weighted SWOT analysis of Cambrex Corporation

This approach also suffers from one major drawback - it focus on individual importance of factor rather than how they are collectively important and impact the business holistically.

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Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis

You can email us to get an example document of Weighted SWOT analysis.

SWOT Worksheet & Template

If you like to do your own SWOT analysis or want to make your own Weighted SWOT SWOT matrix then feel free to download Fern Fort University SWOT Analysis Template.

References / Citations & Bibliography

• M. E. Porter, Competitive Strategy(New York: Free Press, 1980)
• A. D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962)
• O. E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies(New York: Free Press, 1975);
• L. Wrigley, Divisional Autonomy and Diversification (PhD, Harvard Business School, 1970)
• R. E. White, Generic Business Strategies, Organizational Context and Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Strategic Management Journal7 (1986)